The present invention relates to a medicine feeding apparatus which feeds a medicine received in a tablet case to a package bag in accordance with a kind of medicine and a quantity designated by a prescription, in a hospital, an ethical pharmacy or the like, and more particularly to a medicine feeding apparatus provided with a hopper which is attached to a main body so as to be freely drawn, and a curtain which can maintain a discharge speed of the medicine at a high speed while well absorbing a kinetic energy of the medicine in the hopper.
In conventional, in the hospital and the ethical pharmacy, for example, as shown in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 57-5282, the medicine prescribed by a doctor is supplied to a patient by using a medicine feeling apparatus (called as a tablet packaging machine in the document mentioned above). In this system, there are automated all the works from an extracting work to a packaging work comprising the steps of discharging the medicine (a tablet, a capsule agent or the like) in accordance with the kind and the quantity described in the prescription from a discharge drum (called as an aligning table in the document mentioned above) within a tablet case one by one, collecting by a hopper via a chute, and thereafter packaging by a packing paper.
On the other hand, as shown in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-237702, there is a structure in which the tablet case is attached so as to be freely drawn from the main body of the medicine feeding apparatus and be detachable, in order to make it easy to extremely easily execute a maintenance work such as a cleaning work, a replacing work and the like of the tablet case.
In this case, in the medicine feeding apparatus as shown in the former document, the tablet case, the chute, the hopper and the like are contaminated by micro powders or the like generated from the medicine in correspondence to an impact caused by the medicine drop, and there is a case that the micro powders accumulated in a portion of the hopper positioned at the final stage are erroneously enclosed in the packing paper. However, in the conventional medicine feeding apparatus, since the structure is not made such that it is possible to well absorb the impact in the hopper in which the kinetic energy caused by the drop of the medicine becomes largest (positioned at the final stage), the medicine can not stand up to the impact force generated at a time when the medicine collides with the hopper in accordance with an increase of the speed for discharging the medicine, so that it is unavoidable that a part of the medicine is broken. Further, since the micro powders of the medicine are generated in accordance with the breakage, it is extremely hard to prevent the contamination caused by the micro powders.
On the other hand, in the medicine feeding apparatus shown in the latter document, since the downsizing and densification is promoted for making the discharge speed of the medicine high, the kinetic energy of the medicine is increased in proportion to the speed. Accordingly, a cushioning material for efficiently absorbing and reducing the energy generated by the collision at the increased speed of the medicine is not considered.